(Visual Art/Mixed Media)
Location: Artspace, Upfront Gallery

This collection of paintings and drawings by Ryan Cummings are interpretations of two different areas of the state of North Carolina -- Raleigh and the mountains near Asheville. Painted on Venetian plaster, Cummings intends for these landscapes to resemble visions of a more romantic, dream-like version of our surroundings populated with vintage black and white photographs of people who have occupied these areas at different points in time over the last one hundred years. The people in these pictures encourage a playful curiosity about their lives and the history of these places where they lived in the past, and where we now live.

A graduate of the NCSU College of Design and a member of the Artspace Artists Association, Cummings is an award-winning painter who has exhibited in several galleries throughout the Southeast, including in Louisiana, Florida, and North Carolina. He has had four solo exhibitions in Raleigh in the last three years. Cummings’ paintings and murals can be seen in restaurants and private residences.